The work of French philosopher Maurice Blondel (1861–1949) engages most of the controversies in 20th-century French Catholic thought, and came to the fore during the Second Vatican Council. Blondel is recognized in Europe as one of the outstanding figures in the Catholic revival that began at the turn of the century, and was described by Pope John Paul II as "one of the first to discern what was at stake in the Modernist crisis." Presented in this omnibus are two of Blondel's significant texts; The Letter on Apologetics (1896) is a key statement on the possibility and meaning of Christian philosophy. History and Dogma (1904), written in response to the Modernist crisis, is an important contribution to the notion of tradition, seeing it neither in terms of historicism nor as something rote, but as a living synthesis.